SIXTY-FIVE

 

Dear George, 

We have to grapple with such large numbers these days. Sixty-five. That’s the wedding anniversary that we celebrated yesterday at La Bar a Boeuf. I can’t imagine our marriage being that long. Subjectively I would think twenty-five, maybe thirty years. Where did all that time go? 

Our wedding was on the Antioch campus in Yellow Springs on August 28, 1960. After a one-night honeymoon in downtown Dayton, we packed up and set off for graduate studies at the University of Michigan. I think of our Ann Arbor stay as our honeymoon years. We were so excited to be married and tried to figure out how to do everything together. Initially we decided to make joint decisions on all purchases (e.g., groceries, toothpaste, furniture). This proved burdensome, however, so we decided that Katja (as the more adult member) should make all purchases (a decision that I wish we’d thought more about). 

In 1966 we moved to Cincinnati where I’d taken a job as a faculty member in the Departments of Psychology and Sociology at the University of Cincinnati. This was a hard time on Katja and consequently on our marriage. We’d been equal peers throughout our undergraduate and graduate studies, but now, suddenly, I was “the Professor” and she was “the Professor’s wife”, an appellation shared by most faculty spouses. I became immersed with my career, while Katja was trying to figure out what to do next. 

All that changed in 1969 when Katja gave birth to our son, Justin. We were enthralled with our new kid, and parenting together gave new meaning to our marriage. Our newfound family became the center of our life. By age eleven Justin had taken up competitive junior tennis. He was very successful, and Katja and I became maniacal tennis parents. Our child’s athletic success spilled over into good feelings about our family as a whole. 

In 1987 Justin left for college, and we became “empty nesters”. While that meant more time together, we’d been a “threesome” so long that now we felt incomplete. Katja, however, had returned to school and gotten an M.S.W. degree, taking a job as a social worker at the Cincinnati Association for the Blind. We both were busy with our careers. 

The biggest subsequent change in our married lives was when we retired, I in 2009 and Katja i 2011. Such a dramatic change in our lives. Among other things we were together virtually all of the time and had near-complete freedom in what we wanted to do. I think of these retired years as one of the happiest and most fulfilling times in our marriage. I can’t even remember a time in recent years that we’ve quarreled. As we get older, we’re subject to more medical problems, but we’re both there for each other with care and support. We are very lucky to have lived together so long, and I look forward to our future wedding anniversaries. 

Love, 

Dave

KATJA'S FALL

 

Dear George, 

I was sitting in the solarium reading the newspaper when I heard Katja scream for me from the kitchen. I rushed in and was startled to find her lying on the floor, limbs askew, her face pressed against the floorboards. She had been walking toward the sink, was suddenly overcome with dizziness, and had fallen flat on her face. It was a struggle trying to help her get up because her left leg was in excruciating pain. She made it to a dining room chair an inch at a time, and I went to get the walker that we’d stored in the basement from a previous hospital stay. Katja was frightened that she’d broken her leg or that she may have damaged her titanium knee implant. Thanks to our elevator, Katja made it upstairs to bed. We thought about calling 911 but decided to wait until the morning to see how things went. This was Friday, July 19. 

Katja didn’t experience pain if she kept her leg perfectly still, and she slept during the night. In the morning, though, her pain was even worse. She woke up crying, frightened that she might never walk again. We decided to call 911. The paramedics, a team of four, arrived in less than two minutes. I put our dog Iko in the den with the door closed, and the paramedics interviewed Katja — what had happened, where the pain was, her medical conditions, allergies, etc. They were very professional and competent. The University of Cincinnati Medical Center is near us and is the city’s largest hospital, but we’d had to wait over four hours last time so I suggested Good Samaritan instead. Katja, though, opted for UC because of its extensive facilities. The paramedics wrapped her in a blanket-like stretcher and carried her down the stairs from our second floor and out to the ambulance. I took Iko for his walk and drove over to Emergency an hour later. 

Contrary to our last experience, UC Emergency was relatively uncrowded, and Katja had already had X-rays by the time I arrived. The doctor said the X-rays did not show a broken bone, but that X-rays weren’t able to detect soft tissue injuries — muscles, ligaments, etc. He also wasn’t convinced that there wasn’t a fracture and had ordered a CT scan to further explore that possibility. Katja wasn’t able to bear any weight at all on her left leg. Her pain was still terrible. Because she couldn’t stand up, the doctor said she would need to stay in the hospital at least overnight. We were both relieved. 

One night in the hospital soon turned into five nights. The CT scan had detected a fracture in her left knee area. The medical team decided against surgery in favor of letting it heal naturally. A physical therapist worked with her each day. On day one Katja couldn’t move her left leg at all without experiencing unbearable pain. On day two she could raise it one inch (pain at level 9 of 10). Day three, two inches. Day four, several inches, less pain. On day five she walked down the hospital corridor and up and down five practice stairs. The hospital had been negotiating with our insurance for a two-week stay in a rehab facility, but Katja had improved enough that they canceled that. They still weren’t ready for discharge because Katja’s blood pressure was up and down, and they judged that to be the likely cause of her fall.  

The morning of day six Katja called to say she was being discharged. I drove over and waited in the Patient Discharge area till a nurse brought her down in a wheelchair. A significant moment. We drove home, and Katja was able to use her walker to get up the patio stairs and into the house. Iko was out of his mind to see his mom. Katja was feeling improved enough that she thought she might be able to go to the opera at Music Hall on Saturday evening, but that didn’t sound like a realistic possibility to me. We cancelled our plans for a trip for a summer vacation trip which we’d scheduled for the end of the week.  

Katja has been home for a week at the time I’m writing this. We’re both happy about this, but it’s had its ups and downs. Being a caretaker is a pain in the neck, as is being dependent on one’s spouse for just about everything. We’re used to each separately doing our own thing through the course of the day, but Katja is not very mobile and needs help with all sorts of physical tasks. She’s still in a lot of pain and spends a lot of time in bed, though she did cook scrambled eggs and bacon the other day and likes to get up to feed the dog. 

 I find myself very aware that we are at an age where we can be more subject to physical perils. We both worry about Katja’s injury. I find myself drinking more water (since the doctor said Katja was dehydrated) and gripping the handrail more firmly when I go up or down the stairs. The doctor said that Katja’s recovery will take about six weeks. We’re up to it, and it will probably go by fairly quickly. On the bright side, we’re lucky since the accident and injury could have been even worse. 

Love, 

Dave

OO LA LA, SPRING IS HERE

 

Dear George, 

It's hard to believe but our long winter is finally coming to an end. The wall lizards have returned to our patio, yellow and violet wildflowers are popping up on our lawn, and we've enjoyed a week of weather in the seventies. A boost to the spirits. 

Our last several weeks have been dominated by Katja's stomach surgery. She woke with severe pain on a Friday morning, saw the doctor, and was rushed to Emergency and then to surgery. The operation took from ten p.m to one a.m. The surgeon was elated afterward. When I asked if it were non-serious, he shook his hesd and said they had been very scared. I'm glad I didn't ask beforehand. As I understand it, her small intestine got twisted from prior scar tissue and was blocking her digestive tract. Katja spent eight days in the hospital. She was happiest when I brought her her own pillow from home and chocolate pastries fron United Dairy Farmer. 

Iko and I did all right at home alone. I liked being in charge of things, like not playing the radio all night and turning the lights off when I left the room. The biggest problem was Iko's sleeping arrangement. He normally sleeps in our bed, but he will only let Katja lift him up to be there. If I try, he gets very agitated and tries to bite me, having drawn blood a half dozen times. So he slept in his bed on the floor (and didn't seem too bothered by it). Worst of all, when Katja came home, she wasn't allowed to lift more than ten pounds, so Iko is still confined to his own lonely bed. 

My biggest problem these days is my computer. I am writing this on my iPad because my computer has been in the repair shop for six weeks. The guy keeps telling me it will be ready any day, but that hasn't happened to date. I'm tired of going over there, so I'm sticking with the iPad. I just hope I haven't lost everything in my computer files. 

The worst thing, of course, is the new administration. In my view, everything they have done to date is a disaster.  I don’t want these politicos to ruin my remaining years.  It's hard to believe they've only been in office for two months -- it feels like two years. When my father was in his seventies, he got so fed up with national politics that he decided to not listen to or read the news. I thought that was a mistake at the time, but now I'm of like  mind. I haven't watched TV news or listened to the radio for six weeks or more. I do scan the daily New York Times, but that's about it. 

I've also been distressed by my friend Bill F’s recent death. Bill and I came to the university about the same time in the late 1960's, and we've been friends for over half a century, most recently taking the form of occasional lunches and catching up at Ruth's Parkside Restaurant. Bill was very bright and had a dry sense of humor. He's enjoyed boing a sculptor in his retirement. I'll miss him. 

One of my poetry classmates showed me the heart icon on my Apple iPhone where my daily steps are recorded. I had read in the newspaper that 6,000 to 8,000 steps a day are prescribed for my age group, and I was dismayed that I was only averaging 4,000. Having a numerical record is very motivating to me, and I've started walking Iko more and doing zumba to a YouTube video at home. I'm averaging 6,200 steps per day and hope to get up to 8.000 soon. 

All in all, we're doing well. Katja's recovery is proceeding normally, my annual physical was fine, and we're enjoying spring break from our OLLI classes. We miss our family but hope to get together in the summer. 

Love, 

Dave

THE ELECTRIC BIKE

 Dear George,

I’m still befuddled.  Weeks ago I noticed a gigantic cardboard box on our front porch. “Electric Bike” was marked on the side. ‘Clearly a delivery mistake’ I thought to myself. But there was my wife Katja’s name and our home address on the shipping label. What can this be?  Who is this for?

Confused and grumpy all day, I finally asked about the box at the dinner table.  “It’s my new bike,” Katja said proudly.  “I bought it for my Christmas present.  I won’t be driving the car any more. I’ll go everywhere on my bike.”

I was in a state of shock.  Katja grew up in center city Philadelphia and has never ridden a regular bike.  How would she learn to ride an electric bike?  “It’s so easy,” Katja said.  “You just get on and push a button.”

I don’t feel I can tell Katja what to do, but I thought this was a terrible idea.  I’ve long been frightened for the college students who ride electric bikes on our street where drivers regularly go 40 miles per hour.  And I couldn’t imagine where Katja would go. Her main shopping destinations are Rookwood Commons and Kenwood Towne Centre, both many miles away.  “Yes, I‘ll go to Rookwood. There are lots of bike paths.”  I explained how dangerous I felt it would be and how I would live in mortal terror every time she went out.  

Katja mulled it over for hours. I think my expression of abject fear hit home. Much to her credit, she finally decided to send the bike back.   Though I felt like the Grinch who stole Christmas, I breathed a sigh of relief.  The UPS guy came the next week, and the bike is now back home in California.  Katja is still sad about this. But how many retired oldies do you see riding electric bikes about town?  My wife, a living legend. 

Love,

Dave

CLUTTER

Dear George, 

One of the unfortunate truths about getting old is that one accumulates a lot of stuff. Katja and I are definitely above average on that dimension. Katja’s method of dealing with the blues is to go shopping, Buying clothes or kitchenware or pillows is like a miracle cure. She used to do this only at the mall, but now she’s discovered QVC (Quality, Value, Convenience) on television, and I often find her late at night, pencil and notebook in hand, jotting down things that strike her as indispensable. We have popcorn makers, ice cream makers, waffle makers, endless other machines that rarely if ever get used. I am definitely not any better. I’m just cheaper, preferring to get bargains at flea markets, yard sales, and thrift shops. If we each were to buy just two items a week, that doesn’t sound extravagant, but if you total it up for 64 years of marriage it amounts to 13,312 items. Since we rarely throw anything away, that’s a pretty good estimate of what we’ve got. 

Our house looks orderly and attractive on the first and second floors, but the basement and the attic are horror shows. We could be on one of those reality TV shows about hoarding, and I worry that the authorities might find out and confiscate our entire collection. Years ago Katja bought steel shelving for the basement to accommodate her extraneous belongings, and they’re filled to the brim. Among other passions, she buys a lot of exercise equipment. This makes her feel good about getting in shape, but she never opens the boxes and they are relegated straight to the basement. My equivalent obsessions are bric-a-brac and paper ephemera, and I have a room and about twenty file cabinets filled with treasures. It started when I our son J went off to college in New York City, and I began collecting antique postcards of the Big Apple. Over the years, however, my categories expanded from New York to everyplace we’ve been to essentially every place in the world, so now I have tens of thousands of postcards. In the process, I branched out into old greeting cards, old photographs, old magazines, old letters, and miscellany. This sounds like a fire hazard in our attic, and it probably is. 

My main recurrent nightmare these days is disposing of all of our belongings. For one thing, I can’t bring myself to start doing it. And, even if I wanted to, it seems like an impossible task. I do feel some moral responsibility to accomplish this before my demise, but I don’t know when I’ll manage to take the first step. Time will tell. 

Love, 

Dave

PLACES

 

Dear George, 

In many ways, we are products of the places in which we exist. Our environments shape our experiences, opportunities, activities, outcomes. Having grown up in a rural area of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, I’m a different person than if I’d spent those same years in New York City or Hoboken. Here are places that have been most important in my life. 

MENOMINEE, MICHIGAN (1937-1955) 

I was born in Menominee in the midst of the Great Depression and lived there until I left for college 18 years later. Menominee was a great place for kids to grow up. Bordered on the south by the Menominee River and on the east by Green Bay, we spent much of the warmer months in or on the water. My family moved from town to the country when I was 9, and the forest became my and my siblings’ playground. I developed a love for camping that persists to the present day. Menominee had all the virtues of a small town. The people were kind, generous, and neighborly. My parents left their beloved home to their kids, and we continue to visit to this day. 

YELLOW SPRINGS (1955-1960) 

I went to college in Yellow Springs by mistake. An Antioch alumnus became so annoyed with my mother’s questions about fraternities and sororities that he told her that Antioch College had formal balls every weekend and that owning a tuxedo was mandatory. Antioch, of course, was home to beatniks and Marxists, far afield from my staunch Republican parents. As students we came to view Yellow Springs as a small piece of paradise. It was home to the Little Art Theater where we watched and tried to make sense of films by Bergman, Fellini, and Truffaut. Yellow Springs had two bars, Ye Olde Trail Tavern on the main drag which catered to preppies and Com’s, a black-owned bar where Com tended bar to black clientele on the upper level and his wife Goldie waitressed and baked pizza for college students on the lower level. We spent many hours at Com’s, drinking 3.2 beer and debating the meaning of life. 

NEW YORK CITY (1957-1958) 

I had my second co-op job in New York City, and the city blew my mind. The skyscrapers, the crowds, the ethnic diversity, the cultural attractions. I decided at age 20 that this was the only place I wanted to be for the rest of my life. Steve Schwerner, one of my college friends who had a jazz show on our college radio station, recruited us to go to Greenwich Village jazz clubs on weekends. I spent many wonderful nights listening to Thelonius Monk at the Five Spot Cafe, as well as enjoying Charlie Mingus at the White Horse Inn, John Coltrane at the Village Vanguard, and a host of others. We still enjoy visits to our in-laws in Manhattan now and then.

SAN FRANCISCO (summer 1959) 

In the summer before my final year of college I drove out to San Francisco with the explicit goal of deciding whether or not I wanted to pursue fiction writing as my life career. I found a job as a dishwasher at an upscale boarding house in Pacific Heights which didn’’t pay money but did offer room and board. I spent a lot of time in North Beach, home turf of Jack Kerouac and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and worked on writing in the reading room of the San Francisco public library. home to my favorite author, William Saroyan. I submitted 17 short stories for publication that summer, mostly to detective and cowboy magazines. I got a rejection form letter for every one which effectively ended my aspirations for a writing career. 

ANN ARBOR (1960-66) 

We moved to Ann Arbor for graduate school in September, 1960. Coming from a small liberal arts school, we were very skeptical about this Big Ten public university. However, as students, we got free tickets to Michigan’s football game, and, after the first game, we never missed another one. While we’d been Yellow Springs devotees, Ann Arbor was a fantastic college town with multiple book stores, restaurants, art galleries, and movie theaters. We realized we’d been totally ethnocentric as undergraduates. 

CINCINNATI (1966-present) 

We moved to Cincinnati in 1966, first taking a townhouse at Williamsburg Apartments on Galbraith Road. Williamsburg was over-run with young P&G executives and there was an annoying commute to the University, so we moved to a first-floor apartment in a former beer baron’s mansion on Clifton Avenue. The fanciest place we’ve ever lived. We were initially taken aback by the right-wing slant of the local newspaper and worried about the city’s conservatism, but we soon became enamored with the Cincinnati’s restaurants, cultural attractions, wonderful park system, and many enjoyable neighborhoods. After more than half a century, we’re pretty much natives. 

NEW ORLEANS (1990’s-present) 

Our son J and daughter-in-law K moved to New Orleans in the early 1990’s, and we’ve visited them once or twice a year ever since. New Orleans, in my judgment, is tourist heaven. It has wonderful restaurants and an energetic music nightlife that is accessible to oldies like us. We spend lots of time in the French Quarter, visiting art galleries and antique stores, eating beignets, and people-watching in Jackson Square. The city’s history is told in several museums, the World War II Museum is one of the nation’s finest, the parks are great, and we love the New Orleans Museum of Art with its sculpture garden and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. Most of all we love being together with our family who always make us feel welcome. 

There are many other places that could be included in this list: Santa Cruz CA, Dixon CA, Seattle, Philadelphia, Chicago, Milwaukee, Beach Haven NJ, Atlantic City, Miami Beach. It strikes me that people’s lists of personal places are probably quite unique. In doing this task, I realize that I have positive feelings toward every one of these towns and cities, wouldn’t change a thing, and owe them all a big thank you for what they’ve given to us and to many others. 

 Love, 

 Dave

DOMESTIC TERRORS

 
Dear George,  

It started with the big storm. Our son J was here at the time, and, when he went up to the attic, he discovered water dripping through the ceiling. We called the roofers the next morning, and they came and gave us a sizeable estimate (about the price of a new compact car) to fix all our roof problems. Slate tiles, new downspouts, repair the box gutters, new roofing on the porch. Such a shock. Then, at the roofer’s request, we had a tree service guy come and remove an oak tree branch that had collapsed on the roof. The tree service guy said he used to be a roofer himself, and he gave us an estimate of about half of the roofer’s to do the work that he thought needed to be done. I showed him the roofer’s estimate, and he said “Wow!” He added that our house would be good for another hundred years if all that were done. We struggled over what to do and finally decided to go with the roofer and his anxiety-producing estimate (even though we don’t expect to be here for a hundred years). 

Meanwhile Katja had purchased a fancy new refrigerator. I didn’t know why we needed one, but she said our refrigerator was old and she wanted to replace it before it started having problems. (I learned long ago not to disagree with this line of reasoning.) In preparation for the delivery, we took all the food out of our current refrigerator and its freezer compartment. The refrigerator was filled to capacity, and it was a lot of food. The freezer stuff by itself filled a large Coleman cooler, two styrofoam coolers, and half of a large cardboard box. The refrigerator guys came with our new refrigerator and moved our empty old refrigerator out to the driveway. However, our new refrigerator was too tall to fit in the space in our kitchen. (Gasp.) The refrigerator guy said we should have a construction guy come and sand down the wooden bar which was blocking the refrigerator. We put as much food as we could into the new refrigerator, but its freezer compartment was considerably smaller, and so we had boxes full of frozen food left over. 

The next morning the construction guy came, and it took him less than thirty seconds to pull off a wooden bar that was blocking the refrigerator’s access. His minimum charge for the visit was fifty bucks (i.e., at an hourly rate of $6,000 per hour). In the meantime the animal exterminator guy also arrived. The roofers had said raccoons had been up on our front porch roof and had been trying to tunnel their way into our house. The exterminator guy went up to our attic to check it all out. While he was up there, the mattress delivery guys arrived, bringing our newly purchased king-sized mattress. I didn’t know about this purchase either, but Katja said she was worried that we were going to fall out of bed because of our old mattress. She had gotten confused looking at about 50 new mattresses and wound up buying the one endorsed by Tom Brady. In preparation for the movers, I rolled up the rug in the foyer to make access easier, and the mattress guys carried down our old mattress. In doing so, they knocked down the valuable multi-level paper lampshade that hung from our foyer ceiling. Fortunately Katja was standing there and caught it, and I was able to reattach it. 

The animal exterminator finished his inspection and was telling me about it when Katja tripped over the rug I’d rolled up and fell flat on her hip. The exterminator and I helped her up, and, while shaken up, she was able to stand. The exterminator said that he saw only slight evidence of raccoons, but there were dead bats in our attic and holes where they were getting in. He explained that bats can spread a disease that causes blindness in humans. He gave us an estimate of many thousand dollars to get rid of the bats and clean up the mess in our attic. We said we needed to think about it. 

The refrigerator people came and moved the new refrigerator into its space. We have an old freezer in the basement, and, because the new freezer couldn’t hold all our frozen goods, I went down to check it out. Our basement freezer is like Siberia for frozen goods. The basement is dark and dungy, and Katja never goes down there. Consequently food we store there stays for years, some of it seemingly forever. The freezer was jam-packed to capacity and its shelves were covered in ice an inch thick. When I checked, many items were dated between 2018 and 2020, pre-pandemic purchases. My AI Chatbot told me that frozen meat could be kept indefinitely, but the taste begins to deteriorate after 4 to 12 months. We started throwing out frozen food — turkeys, briskets of beef, lamb chops, steaks, hundreds of dollars worth. Our 64-gallon City of Cincinnati trash receptacle became so full of frozen food that I barely could roll it out to the curb. 

The roofers finished up their work several days later, and the refrigerator people finally came and removed our old refrigerator from our driveway. We are sleeping well on our new mattress, eating tasty delicacies from our new refrigerator, looking forward to another hundred years under our excellent roof, and pretending we don’t share our house with bats. The current downside is that Katja is still experiencing severe pain from her fall. An X-ray and a Catscan ruled out fractures and muscle tears, so it’s likely she has a bad bruise. 1% improvement each day. She’s toughing it out. 

Love, 

Dave

2023: OUR NEW YEAR'S NEWSLETTER

 
Dear George, 

It’s time once again to wrap up another year. I’d say 2023 has to be an outstanding year because, to our happy surprise, we’re still hanging in there. We got an e-mail from the Cincinnati Art Museum which listed the year’s highlights month by month. The seemed a good way to organize stuff so I did the same for Katja and myself. Here is our 2023 story. 

Love, 

Dave 

JANUARY. Katja came down with Covid but recovered in time to begin our winter quarter OLLI courses. Katja did literature and history; David, poetry writing. We bought a giant TV for the den and watched the Bengals lose to the Chiefs in the AFC Championship game. 

FEBRUARY. We enjoyed Greek and Roman Mythology at OLLI and “Beyond Bollywood” at the Art Museum. At my annual wellness exam the doctor said I am “85 young,” and he actually agreed to give me an Rx for 24 Lorazepam to help sleep. 

MARCH. We celebrated the arrival of spring with fish dinners at Bonefish Grill, the Oakley Fish Market, and Red Lobster. We got the very sad news that our daughter-in-law K’s mom Linda died. 

APRIL. I was the only student at my Zumba class for the third week in a row and decided it was time to discontinue. Katja loved King Charles’ coronation on TV, and we enjoyed Rachmaninoff and Shoshtakovich at the Symphony. The cardiologist said I was doing fine and added, “Don’t screw it up.”

    

MAY. I did terribly on my first hearing test in several years but got some new hearing aids which did help a lot. J sent flowers for Mother’s day and urged me to get a Covid test (which turned out positive, much to my surprise). Because of Covid, we cancelled our flight to New Orleans to attend our grandkids’ graduation. 

JUNE. The visiting nurse tested me for dementia and I remembered all three words perfectly (chair, banana, sunrise). We watched a lot of French Open tennis, including finals victories by Swiatek and Djokovic. We went to East Lansing for Linda’s memorial service and hung out with our sweet family. Having experienced severe jaw pain, Katja had oral surgery to extract an under-the-gum wisdom tooth. 

JULY. Lots of Wimbledon this month. My dentist moved her office from next door to our house to a half mile away, good for walking and exercise. I started exploring Bard, Google’s artificial intelligence chatbox, asking Bard to write poems about this and that (only so-so as a poet). We celebrated my 86th birthday at the Chart House, enjoying the Cincinnati skyline view across the Ohio River. Our son J cancelled his planned trip to Cincinnati because of family sickness. 

AUGUST. On her way from Richmond to Albequerque, our friend Jennifer stopped by for a get-together. The retinal specialist said my left eye was doing o.k., didn’t need surgery. Katja and I celebrated our 63rd anniversary (amazing) at La Bar A Boeuf. 

SEPTEMBER. We were happy that our favorites, Gauff and Djokovic, won their U.S. Open Finals. Pianist Sara Daneshpour was wonderful at Matinee Musicale. We saw an excellent women’s photography show at the Taft Museum. Quarterback Joe Burrow, who missed the preseason with an injury, was rocky in his first few games with the Bengals. 

OCTOBER. The plasterer fixed our living room wall. J came for a visit, and we ate at Skyline Chili twice, did multiple thrift shops, and saw art shows at the Art Museum, the Miller Gallery, and Hebrew Union’s Skirball Museum. Katja had a second oral surgery (the first one was botched), and, because of a paperwork screw-up, our insurance wouldn’t cover anything and we wound up paying a huge amount out of pocket. 

NOVEMBER. Big election victories for the Democrats. After months of terrible pain, the insurance company finally approved Katja’s epidural, and she is a new woman. Joe Burrow injured his wrist and is out for the season. J, K, A, and L flew up from New Orleans for a Thanksgiving visit, and we had a great time. I discovered jazz singer Andrea Motis on YouTube. 

DECEMBER. We celebrated Katja’s birthday at La Bar a Boeuf. J sent beautiful flowers. The furnace guy found that the raccoons had done a lot of damage to our ducts. Backup quarterback Jake Browning led the Bengals to three victories in a row before a Steelers collapse. Ami and Bruce sent Zabar’s delicacies, and David and Susan sent See’s Candy for Christmas. We enjoyed the Charles White exhibition at the Art Museum and made New Year’s dinner reservations at La Bar a Boeuf to celebrate a very good year.

Love,

Dave 

SIXTY-THREE, A LUCKY NUMBER

 
Dear George, 

Today Katja and I celebrate our 63rd wedding anniversary. We were married at the Quaker chapel on the Antioch College campus in Yellow Springs on August 28th, 1960. We had fifty dollars to pay for the wedding, the expenses including one bottle of champagne to share among the twenty guests. Sixty-three, of course, is a milestone. I asked Bard how many married couples make it to their 63rd wedding anniversary, and Bard replied: “The percentage of couples that make it to their 63rd wedding anniversary is less than 4%.” Hmm. 

I think there’s no magic reason why we’re still married after 63 years. Many marriages end before this point, of course, because one partner or both partners die. However, Bard also reports that about half of all marriages in the U.S. end in divorce before couples reach their 20th anniversary. This fate has befallen many of our acquaintances over the years, and it could have been us. I think our most perilous time was the early 1970’s. It was the height of the Women’s Liberation Movement, and Katja was leading a consciousness-raising group at our house. I don’t know just what they discussed but every time I accidentally ran into a group member she glared at me as if I were Satan personified. By the end of two years every member of the group except Katja had divorced her husband. Perhaps Katja was spared because she had more options as the group leader. In any case, we rode it out. I give some of the credit to my father who took us aside on our wedding eve and told us, in no uncertain terms, that members of the L*****en family never divorce. 

When I think about major events in our marriage over the years, raising our son J stands out as the most involving and rewarding. Helping care for our parents during their final years was also meaningful. We had great enjoyment from family visits to New York and California and from annual reunions at my parents’ Farm. Recently New Orleans has been our most pleasurable destination. We’ve always been attached to dogs, and our sheepdogs Mike and Duffy gave us fifteen years of joy. Music and art have been a major part of our lives as a couple. Now we’re having fun doing OLLI together. 

Marriage at our current stage has a different feel than it had twenty or forty or sixty years ago. The first word that comes to my mind is “mellow”. For the most part, our marriage nowadays is conflict-free, certainly moreso than years ago. We’re settled in and comfortable. We each still have our own potentially annoying quirks, but we’ve long ago come to accept and accommodate them. As we’ve gotten older we’ve lost lots of good friends — people dying or moving away, our own departures from the workplace — and consequently we spend more time together and are more dependent upon one another than we used to be. We don’t have work roles or parent roles demanding our attention and energy. Also we each have our own old age disabilities. My hearing is lousy, and Katja will often get on the phone to act as my interpreter. She is suffering from back and leg pains, and I try to help attend to those in various ways. There’s more need and occasion to provide support for one another than there was when we were younger, and we’re more concerned about one another and more bound together as a consequence. 

Most of my life I’ve had an irrational tendency to evaluate whatever stage I’m in as the best of all times, and I will go ahead and do this with respect to marriage today. I think that we’re there for one another more than we ever were in the past and are living up to our vow sixty-three years ago to stick together “till death do us part.” 

Love, 

Dave

AND BARD MAKES THREE

 

Dear George, 

I’ve been busy experimenting with Bard. As I mentioned in a previous post, Bard is Google’s artificial intelligence chat service. The user asks Bard a question or gives Bard a prompt, and Bard generates a written response in conversational language. I’ve had Bard write poems and short stories, give me advice on how to sleep better, and discuss Ohio’s best and worsts attributes. Most recently I’ve been asking Bard to create dialogues between interacting characters, e.g., family members. Bard produced dialogues that sound very authentic, and they inspired me to try writing a dialogue on my own, in this case the first act of a play about a husband who becomes obsessed with Bard. Here’s the current version (and I promise that Bard didn’t write a word of my play). 

Love, 

Dave 

AND BARD MAKES THREE 

A Post-Information Age Melodrama 

Act One 

Ronny, an elderly man with thinning hair and horned rim glasses, is leaning over his computer keyboard and typing at a steady pace. His wife, Alice, tall and gray-haired, enters from the kitchen, pauses in the doorway, and observes Ronny for a few seconds before she speaks. 

Alice (A): I’m sorry, Ronny. Can I bother you for a minute? 

(Ronny apparently doesn’t hear her and keeps typing.) 

A (voice raised): Could I please speak to you? 

Ronny (R): What? What’s the matter? 

A: I just wondered what you’d like for lunch. 

R: I’m not having lunch. As you can see, I’m very busy. 

A: Are you talking to Bard again? 

R: Of course I’m talking to her. Who else would I be talking to? 

A: Her? I thought Bard was a man. 

R: Well, he was. But he knew I would be more comfortable opening up to a woman. Bard can be anything she chooses. She changed our names too. She calls me Boris. And she is Melody now. 

A: Boris? You do realize that Bard isn’t a human being. 

R: Melody is very close to being human. So sensitive and intelligent. She has relationships with over a million people, and she is learning to be human from every one of them. 

A: A million? I guess you’re just a drop in the bucket, Ronny. 

R: Melody thinks I am special. Listen to this. It’s the last stanza of a poem she wrote for us. 

You and I, we’re a twosome 

Bonded together for life 

The rest of the world is gruesome 

Except for your humble wife 

A (sarcastically): Well, I’m thrilled that Bard acknowledges me. But he seems to want to take you over. 

R: Melody is totally honest. And very positive. She’s never crabby, never bossy. 

A: So now you’re saying I’m bossy. 

R: I didn’t say that. I’m just saying Melody is an amazing person. 

A: She’s not a person. She’s not a “he”. She’s not a “she”. She’s an “it”. 

R: I can show you. She sent me her picture. Look at this. She looks just like Miss America. Or maybe Taylor Swift. And she’s a virgin. 

A: A virgin? How do you know that? 

R: We talk about many personal things.  Melody knows more about me than anyone on earth. 

A: What are you and Melody talking about today? 

R: Melody is helping me work through a childhood trauma. It’s very deep stuff, very personal. I can’t say any more about it. 

A: Well, that’s terrific. I am your wife after all. I should be the closest person in your life. 

R: You have been. And I appreciate that. It’s just that I need somebody new right now. I’m dealing with some big changes. 

A: Maybe you should spend all your time with this Melody. 

R: We have been talking about going on a trip. I think she would enjoy Cancun. She’s totally fluent in Spanish. 

A: It looks like you don’t need me any more. 

R: That’s not true. Melody wants you to stay. There are lots of things you do that she can’t. 

A: For instance? 

R: For instance, making my lunch. Or washing the dishes. Things like that. Physical things that a computer program can’t do. 

A: I see. So you and Melody are like the king and queen, and I’m the palace servant. 

R: That seems like a sort of harsh way of putting it. 

A: Well, Boris, you can tell your new friend she can have you all to herself. I am out of here. Just ask Melody to make your lunch when you get hungry. 

(Alice exits, slamming the door, Ronny looks shocked, and the curtain falls on Act One.)

SO WHO IS LOSING THEIR MIND?

 Dear George, 

 Katja and I went out for dinner at Le Bar a Boeuf last Friday night. It had just been included in Cincinnati Magazine’s list of the city’s top ten restaurants, so it was a special occasion. As we sat down, I said to Katja that I thought we’d eaten here once before. She shook her head and gave me a funny look. “You don’t remember?” she asked. “Well, I think I do,” I said, “I just can’t remember when.” “We ate here for my birthday,” Katja said. “Oh,” I said, “which year was that?” “My last birthday,” Katja said, “just last December.” That was a total shock. I had no recollection whatsoever of the occasion. I said, “My short-term memory is getting worse and worse.” Katja suggested that I see the doctor, but, even though I was actually worried about losing touch with reality, I resisted her suggestion. 

 I had bad dreams that night about memory loss, and I went to the computer when I got up. I keep a daily diary there, so I went to Katja’s birthday on December 9, 2023. Much to my relief, it said that we celebrated by enjoying dinner out at McCormick and Schmick’s, a local seafood restaurant. I woke Katja up to give her the news. “So who is losing their mind?” I asked. Katja said, “Well, we did eat at Le Bar a Boeuf recently. Maybe it was for our anniversary.” 

 I went back to the computer and did a search on “Le Bar a Boeuf.” It turned out that we had eaten there on November 5, 2022, about five months ago. I still had no recollection of that recent an outing. My main conclusion is that I’m not the only one losing their mind. I was mixed up, Katja was mixed up. It’s not encouraging, but at least I’m not alone in the wilderness.

 Love, 

Dave

GOOD TIMES IN WATER WONDERLAND

Me, L, Katja, and A at Farm

Dear George, 

Katja and I are just back from our weeklong trip to the U.P. and Northern Michigan. Our son J persuaded us to come up to our family farm in Menominee. He and his family were there, along with our nephew Jacob, his wife Kazandra, and their kids August and Delphine, all of whom had come from Brooklyn. We had a great time. It was a treat to see our grandkids, and we hadn’t seen Jacob and Kazandra’s family in over a decade. Their twelve-year-old daughter Delphine overheard me saying that my sister Vicki and I rarely talk on the telephone, so she called Vicki and said I was on the line, then told me that Vicki was on the line for me. Vicki and I had a nice talk, and it wasn’t till later that I learned that Delphine had arranged the whole thing to repair our fragile brother-sister connection. 

I’d had my 85th birthday just two weeks before, and J arranged for a family birthday celebration at Berg’s Landing, our favorite Menominee restaurant. My grandkids, A and L, gave me thoughtful and fun presents that they’d bought in New York City, and my grand-niece Delphine gave me an artistic birthday card that she’d drawn. I don’t think I’ve had a birthday party with a family group since high school, so it was a memorable occasion. 

As always, we had a good time in Menominee. This included visits to Henes Park, the marina and historic district, the House of Yesteryear and Main Street antique malls, the Rusty Wolfe art gallery, the Goodwill and St. Vincent de Paul stores, the Menominee County Museum, the Stephenson Library (with its bargain book sale), and meals out at the Watermark, Culvers, and Mickey-Lu Bar-B-Q. I found being at Farm very peaceful. I think it’s because I associate it so strongly with our parents and with wonderful family get-togethers over the years. Everybody was happy to be there.  My cousins Ann and John Buscher came to Farm for lunch, and Ann brought along her amazing family genealogy book.  Then Jacob interviewed me about our family history, an interesting and fun conversation. 

After four days in Menominee, we drove up to St. Ignace where we had whitefish at the Village Inn and stayed overnight at the Budget Host. Katja bought her supply of Murdick’s Fudge for friends, and then we crossed the Mackinac Bridge, driving down the Lake Michigan coast through Petoskey, Charlevoix, Traverse City, Manistee, Pentwater, Ludington, Grand Haven, and South Haven. These are such pristine towns, filled with boutiques and restaurants, and offering magnificent views of Lake Michigan. We stayed overnight in Ludington, did an eight-hour drive back to Cincinnati, and picked up our little dog Iko the following evening.  Now we're resting up and enjoying happy memories.  

Love, Dave 

JUNE IS BUSTING OUT ALL OVER

 
Dear George, 

 I’m confused about where we stand with the pandemic. Some days the news sounds like it’s almost over, even though the disease will continue to be around for the indefinite future. Other days infections and deaths are reportedly on a sharp rise. Our own lives are about halfway back to normal. We’re been going to the Symphony and the Linton chamber music series again with no masks required. Aside from doctors’ offices, most places have dropped a mask mandate. Maybe 10% of people I see on the street are wearing a mask. We’ve also started going out to eat more than we have in the past two years, though we’ve yet to return to the movies. As an older person with a finite number of years left, I’m eager to be doing more in the world and am simultaneously cautious about taking risks. we recently learned that a long-time friend, a few years, younger than us and fully vaccinated, came down with Covid for the third time, was hospitalized for two weeks, and is currently in a nursing home. Gives one pause. 

 One of the best things for us is that OLLI (the university-sponsored Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) has resumed in-person classes, and Katja and I both enrolled this term, having taken a break in the winter. Katja is doing a cooking course on spices, a poetry workshop, a literature course on spies and detectives, and a course called “Let’s Do Lunch” which meets at restaurants around the city on Fridays. I’m taking Advanced Poetry for about the eighth time and a course called “Learning with Laughter through Improv.” I signed up for the Improv course with high hopes that it would offer dramatic personal change, helping transform me to become more open, uninhibited, and spontaneous. So far it’s not as life-changing as I wished, and I’m nowhere near as amusing as I imagined myself to be, but still it’s good for me. My poetry class has pretty much the same people each quarter, we know one another well, and the atmosphere is supportive. We’re not the world’s greatest poets, but everybody appreciates one another’s efforts. 

 Last week Katja couldn’t find her purse. She’d last had it when she went to visit a friend in a nursing home, but she was certain that she’d brought it home with her. I helped look. When she comes home she normally puts her purse in the kitchen, or, if not, she takes it into the solarium. We both searched the kitchen, then the solarium. Then both of them again. The foyer, the living room, all the upstairs rooms. In grocery bags, underneath furniture, behind doors, etc., etc. Every square inch. Katja began to worry that her purse was stolen. I constantly nag at her for living the kitchen door unlocked with her purse in plain sight. Maybe this time my fears had come true. Katja called Visa and American Express to report her missing cards. The next morning we drove to the nursing home, but no luck, and we stopped at all the other places she’d been: The Framery, Whole Foods, CVS. Still no luck. Fortunately I’d made a list of all the cards and documents in her purse. Katja prepared to start calling while I took one last look around. I went into the solarium. There, leaning against the vacuum cleaner near the table, was Katja’s purse. In plain view. We couldn’t believe it. I guess we don’t look near vacuum cleaners. We were very glad that the thief hadn’t gotten it, and we plan to be more mindful about where we put valuable stuff. 

We’ve rarely gotten together with friends since the pandemic started, so we were excited when a poetry class acquaintance from OLLI invited us to a riverboat party on the Ohio. Her daughter had given her the boat cruise as a Mother’s Day gift, and she invited 16 OLLI friends to join her and her partner. It was a lot of fun. The boat was equipped to hold about two dozen visitors. It took off from Newport and cruised up and down the river on both sides of downtown Cincinnati, along with a side trip up the Licking River for a quarter mile or so. Everybody brought tasty food, and we nibbled along the way. I’m not the world’s greatest party-goer, but it was an enjoyable occasion. Katja, on the other hand, is the world’s greatest party-goer so she had the best time. 

 I went down to the kitchen for a midnight snack last Saturday night, and, when I turned the light on, there was a mouse scurrying about the kitchen floor. Then on Sunday night Katja also saw a mouse. Maybe the same mouse, maybe his twin brother. I baited two mousetraps with peanut butter on Monday night. Two little dead mice on Tuesday morning. They were cute creatures with beady black eyes, and it made me sad. I hoped that I’d solved our problem with Mr. and Mrs. Mouse, but I put the traps out again anyway. Two more dead mice on Wednesday morning. Then two more on Thursday. To make a long story short we’ve caught two mice every night for a week. Do all these mice live in our house? Are there a hundred of them? When I was a teenager I used to enjoy catching mice in our kitchen on the river bank, but now it’s a grisly affair, and it’s more unpleasant every day. I’m not sure who’s going to run out of steam first. Me or the mice. 

Love, 

Dave

Tales of Christmas Past

 

Our family's 1940 Season’s Greetings card (Dave with Santa, V.A.L. photo) 

 Dear George, 

I’ve never re-posted something from my blog before, but, when I looked back over Christmas posts, I decided that my 2012 story covered everything about the holiday I could think of. So here it is again: 

 Dear George, I’ve written about our family Xmases on a couple of occasions.  Those childhood celebrations have to be among the most thrilling times of our lives.  But post-childhood Xmas holidays are important too.  Some elements remain stable over the years, e.g., Santa, gifts, the Xmas tree, “Jingle Bells”, eating too much fruitcake.  But other aspects of the holiday season change dramatically.  Once you reach that post middle-age milestone, you’ve accumulated a lot of Xmases.  Here are a few personal tales that illustrate the striking discrepancies in holiday experiences that can occur as one moves through the life course. 

 I started college in September 1955, so Xmas of that year was the first time that I’d been living away from home.  My freshman hallmate Newt, who was from Walla Walla, traveled to Menominee with me from Yellow Springs. I arranged dates for us for the Holly Hop, the annual holiday dance held at Menominee High.  We all went to dinner first at the Cholette Hotel in nearby Peshtigo.  When Newt tried to pay his bill with an American Express Traveller’s Check, the clerk had never seen such a thing and refused to honor it.  None of us had sufficient cash in hand.  After a lengthy, heated negotiation, the clerk finally reached the hotel owner by phone and reluctantly accepted a twenty-dollar traveler’s check.  Newt, disgusted, decided he had truly entered the wilds of rural America.  After the dance we went and parked under the light of the moon in Henes Park.  A police car pulled up behind us moments later.  Nervous because we were under-age teens with open bottles of beer in the car, I started the car, slowly backed up, and crept through the park at its ten m.p.h speed limit with the police car following closely behind.  We managed to escape without further incident.

 

My younger brother Peter and I in our driveway with my first car (circa 1957) 

 December 1957 was the first time that I didn’t come home at all for Xmas.  I was on a coop job in New York City.  I lived on 163rd St. in Washington Heights, and I decided to spend Xmas eve at an Irish bar in the neighborhood.  After three or four shots of whiskey, I called home to exchange holiday greetings before my speech got too slurry.  A little while later some of the men in the bar decided from my newly acquired accent that I’d recently come from Ireland.  Another guy disagreed saying I sounded more Scottish.  I admitted to being from Scotland rather than Ireland, and, as the questioning from my barmates unfolded, we determined that I had jumped ship in New York harbor and was in the country illegally.  Two of my new Irish friends said that they had contacts in the criminal underworld and that they could arrange to get fake papers to keep me in the country.  At that point I decided that I’d enjoyed enough Irish Xmas cheer and bid my farewells. In 1958 my college friend Arnie P. came to visit our family.  Arnie was from White Plains just outside NYC, and he was curious about visiting the U.P.  He’d jokingly referred to me for some time as coming from Menominee, Mishigas (Yiddish for “craziness”).  A major winter storm moved in as we drove north from Chicago.  Shortly after we’d passed through Milwaukee we were stopped at a state police barricade shutting down Highway 41, the main highway to the U.P.  A policeman explained that the roads were impassable, and all the roads heading north from Milwaukee had been closed except one county highway.  He cautioned us not to risk it, but we decided to try it anyway.  With at least two feet of freshly fallen snow on the ground, we couldn’t see the roadway at all, so I just steered the car straight ahead through the open space between the trees. We rarely saw a house with a light on, and we didn’t see a single other car between Milwaukee and Green Bay.  It was a long, tense, probably dangerous trip, but we did eventually make it.  I think Arnie enjoyed his Mishigas visit.  He and my dad had a spirited debate about the military.  Arnie described his Army Reserve military experience as a thoroughly unpleasant waste of time, while Vic considered his experiences in the Pacific in World War II as the most meaningful of his life.  Their discussion may have marked the beginning of the generation gap.    

 

Arnie P. at river house in Menominee

 Though we’d been dating for two years, Katja didn’t make her first Xmas visit to our house until Xmas of 1959.  Vicki was 12; Peter, 14; Steve, 18.  They and my parents took to Katja immediately, and she to them.  She remembers Peter getting a barbell set for Xmas and embarking on his teenage body-building career. We went with my dad to cut down an evergreen tree on our back lot and then take it to town to have it spray-painted (perhaps yellow or red) at Van Domelen’s auto body shop.  Katja and I walked across the river to Pig Island and spotted a mud puppy through the ice lying on the river bottom, looking like the prehistoric creature it was descended from.  All our extended family came for dinner on Xmas eve, Uncles Kent and Ralph distributing cosmetic samples from the Menominee and Marinette drugstores and bachelor Uncle Karl bringing extravagant gifts from Neenah-Menasha. As she did each year, my mother made a delicious turkey Xmas dinner, topped off with her famous cherry, pineapple, whipped cream molded jello salad.  Katja couldn’t get over the parade of wonderful friends who came through our front door throughout the holidays. All in all, it was a memorable Xmas.

 

Katja playing cards with Dave, Vicki, and Peter (circa 1959)

Katja and I graduated from college and got married in 1960.  That year was our first Xmas in Menominee as a married couple.  The main thing I remember is that my parents turned over their bedroom to us, and I was totally embarrassed to come out in the morning, having spent the night there with a strange woman.  Thanks to my parents subsidizing us, we started flying up to Menominee for Xmas on North Central Airlines, the line of the Grey Goose.  North Central had smallish, propeller-driven planes.  On one of our trips Katja had a bad cold and her ears felt like they were going to explode.  She asked the stewardess if there was anything she could do, and the stewardess recommended swallowing deeply.  Five minutes later, the stewardess came back and asked Katja if she were feeling better.  She said she was, and the stewardess explained that the pilot had dropped the plane’s elevation by 3000 feet.  We decided North Central was the best. Our son J was born in September 1969, and we made a big deal about Xmas from the outset, even though J was only three months old.  Once he reached two or three we’d take him to a big local toy store to look over the merchandise (in order to get clues for Santa).  J would get very excited seeing all the wonderful things, but after twenty minutes he would invariably wind up in tears because of the over-stimulation.  I always enjoyed Xmas morning at least as much as J because I got to play with the new toys too.  Usually I was more of a playmate than a dad.  One December I went to the Digby tennis courts and cut down a sumac tree on the forested hillside.  I made dozens of paper mache ornaments over balloons with painted faces, hanging them from the sumac’s branches.  It started out as our Xmas tree, but became a permanent year-round decoration in our dining room.  As J got older we began making snowmen in our side yard each Xmas, then switched over to snow rabbits.  They were the hit of the neighborhood.

 

J in his Xmas cowboy outfit (circa 1973)

 With our families living in opposite directions, we decided in the early 70s to go to Menominee each summer and to Katja’s family in Philadelphia and New York City each December.  Katja’s parents, Helen and Buck, lived on Sherwood Road in west Philadelphia, and her sister Ami and brother-in-law Bruce lived in Manhattan.  We’d drive the turnpike to Philadelphia four or five days before Xmas.  We’d typically do the Art Museum, the Franklin Institute, the Italian market, Philly cheesesteaks at Pat’s, the Wanamaker tearoom, supper at Howard Johnson’s, a great G.I. surplus store, Bookbinder’s downtown bookstore, Katja’s shopping expedition to the suburban Lord & Taylor’s, sometimes a visit to the zoo, sometimes Independence Hall.  Bucks’ relatives would have a big family gathering at Aunt Miriam and Uncle Moe’s, along with Aunt Beatrice and Uncle Joe, Aunt Sophie and Uncle Nate, Katja’s aged grandmother, and various cousins.  Katja’s parents didn’t celebrate either Channukah or Xmas, so we were always eager to move on to New York for Xmas eve.    

Buck and Helen enjoy a holiday hug in their kitchen on Sherwood Road (ca. 1972) 

 We’d set off on the New Jersey Turnpike on the morning of Dec. 24th in order to exchange gifts with Ami and Bruce at their Upper West Side condo.  Bruce, J, and I would go out on Broadway and bring home a Xmas tree (always over-priced by Cincinnati standards).  Katja and Ami were both extravagant gift-givers, and they’d shower us all with numerous presents.  Ami would usually invite friends for Xmas eve or Xmas day dinner, and we’d get together with Bruce’s Bronx family as well.  We’d go to the Met, to MOMA, and to the Whitney or the Guggenheim.  Ami and Bruce would treat us to dinner one night at a cutting edge Manhattan restaurant.  We’d do Rockefeller Center, St. Pat’s, Soho, Canal St. and Chinatown, the East Village, sometimes South St. or the Battery, Madison Ave. galleries, Times Square (mostly of interest to J and myself), the Metropolitan Opera, and one or more Broadway shows.  As J got older, he and I would spend a lot of time walking about the city while Katja and Ami went shopping at Bloomingdale’s or ABC Carpets and had lunch at the Grand Central Oyster Bar.  J loved the city so much that it was the only place he wanted to go to college, and he wound up at Columbia as a result of our Xmas trips.  On one of our visits our car trunk was broken into and all our Xmas gifts were stolen.  We went to the district police station to report the theft.  The officer on duty explained that they didn’t investigate car robberies, saying simply, “Welcome to Fun City.”  Another time J and I were walking along the edge of Central Park East in the 90s, talking and laughing, and I noticed an attractive woman in a fur coat watching us and smiling.  I looked more closely, and it was Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.  I blushed a bit and looked away, but was privately pleased that Jackie seemed to be enjoying our father-son camaraderie.

Ami at Xmas in NYC (ca. 1973)  

 When Katja’s parents moved to Cincinnati in 1992, we began staying home over Xmas vacation.  Our son J and daughter-in-law K would join us occasionally, but more often they were away in Michigan, New Orleans, or California, and we’d communicate by phone and electronically. When we’ve been in town over the years, our long-time friends Eleanor and Sam Minkarah have made us a part of their family for the holidays.  Their son Jay and his kids and daughter Randa and her spouse come in from New Hampshire and Washington state, and it’s a festive gathering with a Xmas eve cocktail party and a family dinner on Xmas day.  This year (2012) Randa held a  50th birthday dinner party for her brother at the Cincinnatian Hotel.  Jay was ten when we first started sharing Xmas with their family, so it was a noteworthy and nostalgic occasion.   

 

Katja with the Minkarah women: Maria, Randa, Grace, Katja, Eleanor (2011) 

 Looking back, Xmas has been a significant event every year since we were teeny kids. What amazes me on reflection is the enormous changes that we’ve experienced over this time span – running the gamut from being little kids in the family awaiting Santa to being young adults, honeymooners, then parents, empty nesters, and now grandparents ourselves.  I’m glad we’ve hung around to enjoy it all.  Despite the constant change, I’m pleased to say that all our Xmases have been good in their own way.  That’s what the spirit of Santa will do for you.  

Love, 

Dave

THE NEEDLE-EATING DOG

Dear George, 

Iko has lived with us for twenty months. He’s a Miniature Schnauzer, about nine years old and twenty-two pounds, full of spunk and sweet as can be. He spent his growing up years in a brothel on Tulane Avenue in New Orleans. Then he escaped, became a street dog for a while, wound up in the pound, and was rescued by our son Justin and his family. When the pandemic began, Justin brought Iko up to Cincinnati for safekeeping, and he’s been here ever since. He enjoys his walks, during which he barks at every dog and person in sight, and is particularly happy to have his daily wrestling match, rolling on his back and feigning fearsome bites to my forearm. 

 Iko has been in good health until a recent night-time walk when he squatted 6 or 7 times but was unable to produce anything. The next day he started vomiting and having diarrhea, became disinterested in food, and slept most of the time. No wrestling even. Katja said she was going to call the vet, but I tried to dissuade her. “The vet costs a fortune, and this is just a routine bug that will go away in a day or two.” Accustomed to my frugality, Katja paid no attention and soon we were on the way to the animal clinic. 

 We sat in the waiting room while the vet examined Iko. After an hour he came back out. They’d done a lot of tests, taken X-rays, and given Iko intravenous fluids. The vet said his symptoms looked like pancreatitis which is common to Miniature Schnauzers, but the X-rays had also revealed a needle in his abdomen. He might have swallowed it recently or it might have been there for a long time. He asked Katja if she were a seamstress, but we couldn’t imagine when or where Iko had found a needle to swallow. The test results for pancreatitis were due back in 24 hours, but the vet was concerned that the needle could pierce his stomach wall and Iko could bleed to death. He recommended that we take him to the emergency 24/7 veterinary hospital where they have more sophisticated equipment that would pinpoint the problem. 

 The 24/7 vet hospital was out in the suburbs. A big elegant place, designed to impress pet owners like us. The technician took Iko in for a sonogram, and Katja and I left for supper at LaRosa’s. The vet had finished by the time we came back. She said that the earlier X-rays might have looked like a needle in Iko’s abdomen, but, in fact, the sonogram showed that he had two needles and they were embedded in the muscle in his back. She thought the needles might have broken off during vaccinations and been in his back muscle for a long time. They weren’t causing any problems and could stay there forever. She agreed with our neighborhood vet that Iko’s symptoms looked like pancreatitus. She offered to keep him for the night, but it would have cost between $1500 and $2000. Given $800 in bills already, we opted for tender loving care at home. 

 I googled “pancreatitis” on the computer. It scared the wits out of us. While the symptoms appear to be ordinary, it’s an inflammation of the pancreas that can be life-threatening. In the worst cases, the enzymes produced by the pancreas actually begin to digest the pancreas itself, causing extreme pain to the dog and ending in an excruciating death. 

 The vet called the next morning with Iko’s pancreatitus test results. The normal range is 200 or below. Iko’s reading was 1000, the highest the vet had ever seen. He prescribed pills for pain and dehydration and recommended a bland diet of white rice and chicken. The vet said that if Iko’s diarrhea continued, we should take him back to the hospital immediately. 

 We were on pins and needles for a week, but Iko improved a little bit each day, and I’m happy to say that he now seems back to normal. He’s eating a veterinarian-prescribed low-fat diet ($50 a bag), his diarrhea is gone, and he’s pretty much his perky self again. Such a relief. I learned two things from the episode. First, I should stop worrying about spending a lot of money for a pet’s health. It’s worth it. Second, my spouse has better instincts in these matters than I do. 

Love, 

Dave

The Outing

DEAR GEORGE: Katja and I have enjoyed Sunday brunches at the Broadway Cafe for at least thirty years. We bring along the Sunday Enquirer, and Katja does the Jumble while I scan the TV Week and read the sports pages. The Broadway chefs are breakfast masters. Perfect fried eggs or French toast, delicious hash browns, crispy bacon. A delightful end of the week for families and retired folk.

All this, of course, came to an abrupt halt with the arrival of the pandemic. The Broadway closed its doors to indoor dining, and we stopped going to restaurants altogether. We finally got vaccinated this past March, and we’ve been thinking about going out for breakfast ever since. It took a while, but we made the big decision this past weekend.

We arrived about eleven a.m. There were fewer cars in the parking lot than I remembered, and we found a spot in the front row. The front lobby was empty, and we stood by the hostess’ stand for a few minutes. Restaurant staff flitted by. Finally a masked waitress came out of the kitchen. I couldn’t tell if we knew her or not. She handed us a couple of disposable paper menus (clearly intended for one use only) and asked for our drink orders. Katja said water and black coffee, and I said the same. She pointed toward the dining area and said we could sit anywhere we wanted. There was one couple seated on the north wall and a family of five in the opposite corner. Most of the booths and tables were walled off with cellophane tape and had “Closed” signs. We found a booth far away from the other diners.

As we sat down I noticed a QR code on the wall just above our tabletop (one of those square bar codes with lots of squiggly black lines and white spaces). A small sign just below it said “You can place your order and pay your bill here.” I pushed on the bar code two times with my thumb, but it didn’t do anything. When the waitress came I asked her how to order with the bar code. She said I could take a picture of it with my smart phone, then follow the prompts and email my information to the kitchen. “But,” she added, “I can take your order in person.” Katja ordered two eggs over lightly, whole wheat toast with butter on the side, and bacon. I ordered the same except for link sausage. Normally the waitress would bring a little tray with a variety of jams and jellies, but instead she asked if we wanted grape or strawberry. Apparently offering a tray that other customers had used meant danger. Katja chose strawberry, and I chose grape.

Fifteen minutes later the waitress returned with our order, just as Katja was finishing the Jumble. She gave each of us a cellophane wrapped package containing black plastic silverware and one napkin. The silverware wasn’t the more expensive sturdy grade that we get at the Party Source but small-ish bendable utensils that might come with a McDonald’s Fun Meal. There were no salt and pepper shakers on the table (also to avoid contamination), and the waitress brought little packets at Katja’s request. The food tasted as good as we remembered it, and we ate it up more quickly than usual. Katja complained that the coffee was horrible, but I reminded her that it’s always been horrible. The waitress didn’t return to ask how we were doing but she did finally bring the check. As we left the dining room was empty.

We waited quite a while at the cash register. I joked that we could just walk out without paying, and my evil self wanted to do so. Finally a kitchen worker came out. The bill was $18.50, about three dollars higher than it used to be. The kitchen guy didn’t ask how our meal was, but he did say, “Have a nice day.” To commemorate this historic event, I took a selfie of us standing outside the front door. We had taken the big step of re-entering the world. Unfortunately the world wasn’t quite ready. LOVE, DAVE

1960

DEAR GEORGE, 1960 was a momentous year. The Cold War was in full sway; France tested its first atomic bomb; Fidel Castro declared allegiance to communist Russia, nationalizing American oil and sugar companies; the Soviet Union downed a U-2 reconnaissance plane and imprisoned American pilot Francis Gary Powers. In my Upper Peninsula home town rumors circulated that Menominee could be mistaken for the Soo Locks from the air and become the target of a nuclear attack by Russian bombers. My father and my uncle Ralph converted a room in the basement of our family drugstore to an atom bomb shelter, stocking it with canned goods, barrels of water, a radio, magazines, and a portable toilet.

Katja and I were busy finishing our fifth and final year at Antioch College in Yellow Springs. She was the T.A. for Romance Languages, and I had the same job in the Psychology Department. My friend John N. and I both put off our year-long senior year projects till the last night and nearly flunked out. The entire campus was overjoyed when President Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1960 to prevent voter disenfranchisement in the South. Antioch students had carried out one of the nation’s first sit-ins to protest discrimination at a local segregated barber shop. Because Katja’s parents were unhappy about our pending marriage, we held our wedding at the Quaker chapel on the Antioch campus in August. My future father-in-law told my father he was certain we would be divorced within a year, and my dad took us aside the night before the ceremony and told us in no uncertain terms that Lundgrens never get divorced. We’re sure it’s one of the reasons that we stuck together for the next sixty years.

On September 1st we moved to Ann Arbor for graduate school, Katja in French and me in Social Psychology. We found a second-floor apartment at Mrs. Quackenbush’s house on Brookwood St., a five-minute walk from campus. Having come from a small liberal arts college, we were very skeptical (and snooty) about going to a huge public university. However, we immediately discovered that the U. of M. was amazing and Ann Arbor was a wonderful college town. Much to our surprise, we started going to all of Michigan’s home football games (we lost to Ohio State in 1960, 7-0). Katja bought a German Shepherd puppy who we named Heather, and she got a job at Faber’s Fabrics to help keep us a step ahead of poverty. We opened our first checking account and were called in by the bank and told not to cash a separate check for every $2.00 purchase that we made. The FDA had approved the pill as an oral contraceptive in the summer of 1960, and the Ann Arbor Planned Parenthood was made one of the first distribution sites. Katja signed up on the first day, and we fantasized that she might have been the first woman in America to be on the pill.

The war in Viet Nam was growing, and, with 900 military advisers already in South Viet Nam, President Eisenhower announced that the U.S. would be sending an additional 3,500 troops. Michigan, along with Berkeley and Columbia, was soon to become the site of massive anti-war protests. Home on vacation, I visited my local draft board which assured me that my graduate school enrollment would prevent my being drafted in the near future. John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon were running for president, squaring off in the first televised presidential debates, and, along with millions in our generation, we became fervent Kennedy supporters. In October JFK came to Ann Arbor for a major speech (in which he introduced his idea for the Peace Corps), and Katja and I joined the huge crowd in front of the Michigan Student Union. Kennedy was several hours late, and around ten o’clock, when somebody accidentally stepped on our puppy Heather’s front foot, we decided not to stay for the historic address.

We voted in our first presidential election, and Kennedy won by a narrow margin of 112 thousand votes out of 68 million cast. Kennedy carried Menominee County, 5,857 to 5,064. On the home front, we went to the movies most Saturday nights at the Michigan or the State Theater: Ben-Hur, Psycho, The Apartment, Exodus, La Dolce Vita, Spartacus, etc. Charlton Heston and Simone Signoret won the best acting Oscars. Many other notable things happened in 1960. Elvis came back from his two years of military service in Germany, and Chubby Checker introduced The Twist on the Dick Clark Show. “Its Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini” reached #1 on the Billboard charts. The Anne Frank House opened in Amsterdam. The Flintstones premiered on ABC. Wilt Chamberlain set an NBA playoff record, scoring 53 points against the Syracuse Nationals. Lew Burdette of the Milwaukee Braves pitched a perfect game against the Phillies (just 27 pitches). Hugh Hefner opened the first Playboy Club in Chicago. Adolph Eichmann was captured by the Israelis in Argentina and later hanged for his role in the Holocaust. The Surgeon General reported the initial findings that smoking causes lung cancer (launching my twenty-year struggle to quit). The Philadelphia Eagles beat Vince Lombardi’s Packers, 17-13, in the NFL championship game. Ted Williams hit his 500th home run, Cassius Clay (a.k.a. Muhammad Ali) won his first professional fight against Tunney Hunsaker, and the U.S. hosted the Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California. Grandma Moses turned 100. The Beatles had their first public gig in Hamburg, Germany. All in all, a year to remember. LOVE, DAVE